diff --git a/sbin/devd/devd.cc b/sbin/devd/devd.cc
index 21816e59c587..b64c459a5791 100644
--- a/sbin/devd/devd.cc
+++ b/sbin/devd/devd.cc
@@ -104,6 +104,19 @@ __FBSDID("$FreeBSD$");
 #define CF "/etc/devd.conf"
 #define SYSCTL "hw.bus.devctl_disable"
 
+/*
+ * Since the client socket is nonblocking, we must increase its send buffer to
+ * handle brief event storms.  On FreeBSD, AF_UNIX sockets don't have a receive
+ * buffer, so the client can't increate the buffersize by itself.
+ *
+ * For example, when creating a ZFS pool, devd emits one 165 character
+ * resource.fs.zfs.statechange message for each vdev in the pool.  A 64k
+ * buffer has enough space for almost 400 drives, which would be very large but
+ * not impossibly large pool.  A 128k buffer has enough space for 794 drives,
+ * which is more than can fit in a rack with modern technology.
+ */
+#define CLIENT_BUFSIZE 131072
+
 using namespace std;
 
 extern FILE *yyin;
@@ -892,6 +905,7 @@ void
 new_client(int fd)
 {
 	int s;
+	int sndbuf_size;
 
 	/*
 	 * First go reap any zombie clients, then accept the connection, and
@@ -901,10 +915,15 @@ new_client(int fd)
 	check_clients();
 	s = accept(fd, NULL, NULL);
 	if (s != -1) {
+		sndbuf_size = CLIENT_BUFSIZE;
+		if (setsockopt(s, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, &sndbuf_size,
+		    sizeof(sndbuf_size)))
+			err(1, "setsockopt");
 		shutdown(s, SHUT_RD);
 		clients.push_back(s);
 		++num_clients;
-	}
+	} else
+		err(1, "accept");
 }
 
 static void